Every now and then
by SiSuHu
Summary: [Destiel] a spin off to my story "forever is composed of nows", but readable without it as well; no particular place inside the timeline of the show - a story about love and what it does to us.
1. Chapter 1: Understanding

**Kapitel 1: Understanding**

I was sitting on one of the chairs at one of the neatly arranged, dark wooden tables, with the little lamps on them, in the bunker that has become my home someday. The only home I ever really had. Apart from my car, of course. I was reading in a thick, old book. I don't remember, what it was about, or why I've even read it, or what I wanted to find in there. But there was probably a reason for me reading it. Even when it was just for the sake of doing something. Everyone says about me, that I don't care about books or reading itself, but that's not entirely true. I read. Often even. Sometimes maybe hidden in my room, because sometimes I probably don't want anyone to see me differently than I like him to. People see me as that tough guy, a warrior perhaps, a hunter. Someone, who fights and saves, not someone, who reads and knows. Not someone like Sam. A geek, a nerd. And sometimes I wonder, why at all. Maybe I sometimes feel like I'm destined for something else.

My eyes moved across the old pages. It was quiet around me. And even when I was concentrated, I felt your presence. It was as if you were the silent observer of everything I did. I heard you breathe, and sit there, and even when you didn't move, I could even hear that. Non-movements. I felt your eyes on me, on my lips, which quietly move along, whenever I reread a sentence to understand its meaning even better, on my brows, which I raise, whenever I find something seemingly important. And I felt, how you were waiting for just that, as if my understanding was actually yours.

It felt like I had been sitting there forever and like you would observe me forever. And a small part of me wondered, why it didn't bother me. I noticed it, so much, but even when I make sure you stop most of the time, for some reason, in this particular moment, I didn't feel like it. I didn't understand it, though. What was there to see in me? I'm not that interesting. But I let you continue. Because somehow it was, besides creepy and misplaced, good, too. Good to know, that someone saw me, it almost even felt save. Silent and quiet and together, like a camera that surveilled and kept people from doing things they shouldn't do. As if we belonged together like a rock and a hard place. Like a weird togethership. And all the Nows we more or less voluntarily spent together made it all a Forever. And that held something strangely beautiful.

And then I had found in the book, what I had been searching for. I stretched out my arms and smiled the smile of a winner. Exaggerating maybe, but it felt right. And even when the book didn't care, and my surroundings probably neither, I felt like you did care. Tense and fixed, as if you didn't see anything else but me anymore, you stared at me, as if you would wait impatiently for me to share my understanding with you. I don't really like to compare you to a dog, but you looked at me like one. Like the loyal companion that is completely and entirely dependent on me, and as if I could end wars and cure cancer, when really, I could not.

And every now and then I wonder, if you have turned your back to all your tasks and duties in heaven and to your home, yes, even to your entire species, just for me. To follow me. And that even when I could do absolutely nothing for you. I didn't know, what you expected from me, what you saw in me. I'm no one special, no treasure or a unique artifact. And also, no useful weapon. I'm only Dean Winchester. A simple human in an unsimple world, who does whatever it takes, but is definitely not always able to do what you expect me to. I can't always win, hell, I even lose more often than I win, but I give all my blood and all my will to things I think are important. That was everything I can give. My free will. The only thing that really meant anything to me in the big, giant evil that is this world. But why it was your will to stare at me and watch me all the time, well, I didn't understand that.


	2. Chapter 2: The bad sentences

**Kapitel 2: The bad sentences**

I remember, how I was packing my stuff in my room. The few clothes I possessed, more rough than ready folded and pushed into my bag. It was considerably late, but we, Sam and I, had decided to head out today anyway. As if it mattered to what time of the day we were on the road. It didn't. I heard a quiet knock and saw you standing in the doorway.

"Where are you going?" you asked me and I heard something like fear in your voice. And if I had understood it, I probably would have been amused. Not because I didn't take your fears seriously, but because it seemed ridiculous to be scared because of me. At least when it's about you. As if I put you in danger, absurd anyway, but sometimes I'm scared that I do.

"I found a job for us," I answered randomly and kept on packing. My gun. I needed my gun.

"A job?"

"Yeah," I said, "Looks like a ghoul"

"Ok," you gave, "Where are we headed?"

I paused and looked at you. You looked, as if you weren't so fond of my gaze, and maybe I liked that there are gazes in my repertoire, which make people insecure. But not this one. I didn't like this one as well. Because it came with my own insecurity. And I knew how I looked. The avoiding eyes, which want to do anything but look into yours. The half open mouth, which waits for words I still have to think about. I knew I had to try and say it in a way you wouldn't misunderstand or feel hurt. And I knew that you hated that gaze. Because there never followed anything good after it. At least seeing it from your point of view. I was about to say something you wouldn't like. Sometimes I have to. Sometimes there are these sentences and they're not good. They're never good, not for you. But that doesn't change anything about the fact that I have to say them.

"Listen, Cas," I said, and you seemed to listen, "it's just a little job. We don't actually need you with this, Sam and I gonna handle it"

Something inside me knew, I mean, I had a tiny idea, that you could have the feeling to be not important enough for me, not as important as Sam. There was this invisible war between you two, but Sam probably didn't know about it, the fight for my attention. And it was ridiculous. My attention isn't something worth fighting for. But Sam is my brother and he is everything in this world that is good for me. He is a cramp at my heels, a burden sometimes, sometimes he disappoints me, sometimes he makes a mistake, and sometimes I have to pull him out of crap. But he is the only family I have left, and never would anything or anyone be more important to me than Sam. Maybe I should have taken you with me to that job, after all, I definitely should have done that, but at that time I didn't know, what I know now. You nodded and left my room without a word. You were mortified.

I remember, how I had thought about it for a bit and then followed you. I couldn't leave it like that, I couldn't go like that. I found you scuffling through the hallways of the bunker, your shoulders hanging and your eyes bound to the ground. Quietly and sallow even almost, as if you would disappear in the grey walls any moment.

I caught up with you and put my hand on your shoulder to stop you from whatever it was you were doing. You turned around and looked into my eyes. And it almost crushed me, how much I had given you the feeling of being unimportant, and I was sorry. You didn't say anything, tensely waited for something, for whatever, whatever you expected from me. I didn't know what. I would have given everything to be able to read your thoughts, but I'm just a human being, no super powers, no supernaturalness inside me. And sometimes I wonder, if not really I'm the one being unimportant. But then again, we're all somehow of importance, some more and some less, but all more than not at all.


	3. Chapter 3: Use

**Kapitel 3: Use**

"Listen, Cas," I started anew, and again you seemed to do nothing else than that, "that might just have come across in a wrong way"

"Which part? The we don't need you part, or the Sam and you part?" you gave back and it was snappier than I had expected. I felt my hand becoming a fist, how the anger over your words rose inside me and how I almost had the urge to just punch you in the face. I was here to sort things out, to nip the incoming problem in the bud, maybe even to make you understand that there actually, if we're honest, was no problem at all. There was so much rage inside me. And I barely had any control over my words anymore.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked and my hand left your shoulder. Your warmth staying on it was swallowed by the simmering thing inside me and only milliseconds later I barely remembered it. You should have shut up.

"I mean…," you began, seemingly not sure yet what you wanted to say. But it didn't matter to me anyway, I couldn't listen to you, I couldn't wait for your conciliations, I had to interrupt.

"You have a problem with Sam?" I fired and felt the boiling combativeness flaring up inside me and there was no escape. Whenever it's about Sam, I don't know freedom of speech. I'm the only one, who can talk bad about him, because I'm the only one, who really knows him. Without him I can't exist, and without me he can't. And even when sometimes we go separate ways, we still find back to one another every time. We need it to need each other and we never give up on defending each other. We're family, in blood, in minds, in our souls and in everything that makes us what we are.

"No, of course not," you answered naturally and I felt my face relaxing, or maybe more changing, because I didn't understand what the hell your problem was.

"I just don't understand, why I can't come with you"

My eyes went soft and it was as if I had lost. But not the fight, or the conversation, or a game. I had lost my aggressiveness. It always felt like the only way out of my rage, my inexorable rage, which could boil up inside me so incredibly fast, that I almost burned with it myself, was the way to just feel it. Live it, no matter who got in the crossfire. But with you it was different then. Because that's what you do. You calm me down. You are like the peace pole I never needed. Like an aggression filter, you take all my anger and my frustration over things and transform it into something like peace. And that is it. That's something worth fighting for in this world. That's something meaningful.

"Cas," I started and lay all my guilt and reason into my voice, "Sam and I can handle it. If you absolutely insist on it, you can come, but…"

And there was something hidden in that "but". For a moment I wasn't sure myself what it was. I hesitated. I hoped you would see the nothing in all that and read it and understand what I wanted to say, without me having to actually word it. And I saw how it was working inside you. I knew you wanted to come with us, you didn't want to stay behind. If I was you, I probably wouldn't have wanted that as well. But.

"… but I'd prefer if you stayed here," I continued, after several moments of quiet silence, "so at least one of us is save"

And I looked at your face and found so much worth seeing. So much more than in me. I'm a meaningless human being and you're an angel. An angel! And even when you don't have a good standing inside your kind, you have a good standing in my eyes, as much of it as I could give. And perhaps even alone your loyalty makes me more meaningful than I would be without you. So I needed you save. Who was I to put you in danger? I had done enough damage, even only with my presence in your life. I couldn't use you again and again to make my fights easier. Because sometimes that's what it felt like. Like I would use you. But you're no weapon, like the ones I keep in my trunk. You're so much more than that.


	4. Chapter 4: Finiteness

**Chapter 4: Finiteness**

I remember. Sam was sitting at the round wooden table in our motel room. In front of him his laptop. He was reading something out of an article to me and I was wandering through the room, my eyes directed to the floor, my hand at my chin. I was thinking. Taking in the facts, turning and spinning them, until they made sense to me. Perhaps I look silly while doing that, but I need it. Like a tic, a habit I can't get rid of. As if the steps would help me make my head keep working and as if my hand would hold the thoughts in the right place.

And again I felt observed. I knew you weren't here, but it was like I would feel your eyes anyway. But it wasn't good, like it was a couple of days ago, it just distracted me. Again and again there were thoughts pushing into my head I had no time for. Thoughts about you. I couldn't let go of it. Your eyes, your look, the never-ending excitement you seemed to have for me. Why for me? You're forever, I'm just for now. We're all going to die, someday. Just not you. At least I imagined it that way. You're created for eternity, and are hard to kill. I remember trying it, back when we had first met, when I didn't know what you are and what you're planning. And somehow I still don't know. Then again, all of this, all the mortality around me had an undeniable appeal to it. Perfect is what ends someday. Stop when it's at its best. But I almost envy you for your seeming immortality. You're infinite, and I will end someday, while you will still be wandering around and need no one, perfect inside yourself, complete without my incompleteness.

" _Perfection stands still, while mortals pass by."_

 _(John Green, "Papertowns"; free translation from German)_

Sam made a gesture as if to say 'that's it' and I agreed with his conclusion. With a smile I looked around in our room, as if to search for someone, and something inside me wished that someone was actually here. And that someone was you, Cas. I wanted to share our realization with you. I didn't know why, but I had this urge inside me to feel your presence, to notice your scent, to hear your voice. But I shook it off. I almost even felt ashamed for it. Because what I needed even more was to know about your safeness. That's what I always need.

My thoughts tried to focus on the case, but they wandered off again and again. And when I looked out the window, a cold parking lot outside and miserable weather, I thought about you anew. And I wondered, if, in your infinite story, in all the time you already exist, having seen creation, the origin of earth, the world how we know it, even the universe in its beginnings, if I even played any role in all this. Was I even important in the whole mass of your existence? Or was I just a tiny spot in your life, a spot that would pass, soon forgotten and barely known? And still, your never-ending being always seemed infinitely gruesome to me. I wasn't scared of an end, but were you? Maybe even an infinity had an end somewhere. And maybe some infinities are a little bigger than others. Even when my human mind wasn't even close to able to understand all that.

We packed our stuff and headed out. We got into my beloved Impala, its doors creaking like music in my ears. Before I started her, I took my phone out, because there was something I needed to do, before we could hurl ourselves into the whole fun of hunting.

"Who you texting?" Sam asked from the passengers seat.

Without lifting my head and still busy, I answered, "Cas"

"Why?"

When I had sent the message, I looked up and knitted my brows, because I didn't understand the question. There is no Why here, just a Because. I didn't need a reason to text you. You're important. And maybe I would be just as important to you and maybe that importance would be just as infinite as your existence then. Maybe someday I would stop being a tiny spot on the map of your life. And maybe I would mean something then. And maybe alone that meaning would make something supernatural out of me.

I answered Sam's question with a whizz and I remember the smile I tried to oppress. I didn't know why I wanted to smile, and also not why I didn't let myself, I just knew that it felt like a monster I wanted to fight against. And I knew it had something to do with you. And maybe, after all, you were the monster I wanted to fight against.


	5. Chapter 5: Definitely

**Chapter 5: Definitely**

\- _Found the ghoul's hide-out. Back soon -_

I sent you those little texts. And even when they were short and probably meaningless, the contact to you meant everything. I didn't have to keep you posted, but I still did it. I avoided a "we", because I knew it would just remind you of the fact that I had chosen Sam over you. I told you about our success, because I wanted to share it with you. And I needed to let you know that I would be back home soon. I didn't want you to forget that you were important to me. And I will always have time for that.

We had a lead, a graveyard, where we suspected the hide-out. And we could cope with that, definitely. I had Sam by my side. And even when I would have wanted to have you here, too, I wanted more to have you not here. And it meant everything to me that you trusted us, that you believed in us. Well, at least you believed in me. And that was enough for me to believe in me, too. I hated to put you in that position, but with Sam with me, my life was in save hands. I would take better care of myself, more than I usually do, because even when my life wasn't worth so much to me, I still wanted to spend a little of it with you. And even when I didn't understand it, there were people, who needed me alive. Maybe I wasn't immortal, but maybe still invincible. I might have my faults, but we together, you and me, we didn't have any. It was, as if there was this big Maybe hovering above us, which made everything possible and nothing impossible, and maybe that's exactly what gave me the feeling of invincibleness after all.

Sam and I sneaked around on said graveyard, like cats searching for their next prey. The wrong one, though, we realized. No prey, no tomb, at least not the right one. And we understood quickly, and just as quickly we went to the only other graveyard in this city. No win all along the line, but the process of elimination then. Having arrived, our weapons were ready and our eyes sharp. We found the tomb, the right hide-out of the ghoul we hunted, and went inside. Cautious steps led us deeper and deeper inside and a feeling was hanging in the air that told me there wouldn't be a fight here. No hunt. No win. No success. We stopped, as we found a dead body on the concrete floor, which was covered in old leaves.

"What the…," I breathed into the darkness. My eyes found my brother, then the dark nothingness behind us. At least it seemed like there was nothing, nothing you could have seen with eyes, but a strange air, and I stared at it, as if it was someone. My pupils searched for more than the shattering realization I had found. The monster of the week, the thing I should have killed and definitely wanted to, was gone. What was worse than that? And I was little happy about it.

"Sam, what the hell?" I asked, as if to hope he would have an answer I couldn't see.

"I… I don't know, Dean"

And I searched. I searched for the mistake I had made. Why was she dead? Why hadn't we been here earlier? I put my hands on my head, like I always do, whenever I feel helpless, whenever I don't know what to do. My fist hit the cold, dusty stone walls and the pain echoed in my bones like the loud "damn it" I shouted into the darkness. I didn't understand the world anymore. At least for the moment. My hand moved across my face, while my eyes fixed the dead body in front of me. No success, only failure. And I realized: maybe I had missed something. Maybe I wasn't enough. Maybe I didn't know my next step. Maybe I only knew that there should be less Maybes in my life and that I should search for the Definitely.


	6. Chapter 6: Lasting

**Chapter 6: Lasting**

I remember. The metal door of the bunker creaked, when we came home. We stepped down the stairs slowly and I still know how I wondered, whether it felt just as wrong to Sam as it did to me. I already saw you sitting at the big, glowing table, a smile in your face, as if we had won. I didn't know what I know now, otherwise I would have recognized the illusion in it. Since the last text, shortly before we had been searching for the ghoul and found the dead body in the tomb, I hadn't texted you anymore. I wanted to, but it didn't feel right, it was as if telling you about it would make the whole thing become true. That was four days ago, several calls in absence by you, because I couldn't answer them. I couldn't tell you how much I had failed.

"Hey," you threw into the room and stood up, apparently relieved to see us. I thought you had been worrying, when really, you were just a good actor.

"Hey, Cas," Sam answered. I went directly to my room, because I already couldn't bear the expected disappointment in your eyes, before it even appeared. I slammed my door shut, angry and maybe I hoped a loud sound would make it all easier. I threw my bag in one of the corners and eyeballed my walls for a moment. All the weapons, all the treasures I kept here, and still nothing of it could make me a better hunter. Nothing of it made me meaningful, or more important, or better. I was and stayed the spot. The stupid spot that didn't change a thing. Because the more I tried to help and save, people still died anyway. And still I couldn't save everyone. And still I wasn't good enough.

She had been innocent, that woman. She hadn't deserved to die. She had deserved to be saved. And I had failed. And not only had I failed to save her life, I had also failed to get revenge for her death. The ghoul was gone. Miles away. And I didn't even manage to find him. What kind of hunter was I? What a loser. The guilt spread out inside me like a dark stain of truth and my lungs were cramping so much, I could barely breathe. It was as if there wasn't enough air for me on the world. It was as if I had to learn how to breathe again.

I sat down on my bed and put my hands in my lap. The floor seemed to be the only thing I could handle seeing. Dark and old, and maybe a bit dirty even, but still somehow seeming much more useful than me. The realization of my failure and of what it meant hit me like a shock. It was like I had killed her. At least I was to blame for her death. And that was the only truth I wanted to believe.

I heard slow steps in the hallways and shortly after a cautious knock on my door.

"Come in," I said and you did so. I was just getting my heavy boots off my tired feet, as if I tried to get at least one of the burdens off me. I didn't even look up, but not because I didn't want to see anyone, but because I knew it was you, and because you were the only one I wanted to see, even when I couldn't look into your eyes yet. You held a glass in front of my face that smelled like Scotch, with a hoarse "here". I took it and my fingers touched yours a bit with it. Actually not on purpose, but not less good anyway. I emptied it with one sip and felt the slight burn down my throat and I hoped it would distract me from the burn in my chest.

"Dean," you said and it almost sounded like you needed courage for it. It sounded, as if you were scared of me, as if my quietness was actually sneaking up and as if it would end in me attacking you. But I didn't. Maybe I would have, if I had known what I know now. No, definitely. I definitely would have attacked you. But I was still in the dark and thought all this wasn't your fault, but only mine. My eyes found yours and I tried to hide my self-doubt and my anger and disappointment, but I couldn't. Not with you.

"Thanks, Cas," I said at some point, "for the Scotch, I mean"

You smiled at me, with that smile that wanted to make it all right and still couldn't. My face relaxed a bit, and maybe I even felt a little better. And it was irrelevant, whether it was the alcohol or you. What did it matter.

"I really needed that," I said and kept to myself what exactly. And it was like you would know, always. And even when you would turn out to be the cause for this situation, in this little moment you were the solution. The rescue. The cure maybe even. However you did it, you could fix it all, and I was happy you could. And that made you the hero in the story, at least for the moment. And even when I would realize after all, that even heroes have their wicked schemes, I now realized only and alone that you were attentive and there for me, and here. For me.

Constantly and lasting. And I wondered, why it didn't have any impact on me. As if to hope you would rub off on me. That maybe I would someday become just as good as you. And maybe it was just a little hick-up inside me, a little spark of self-doubt that inflamed everything, but I really wondered, how you could be here constantly and still didn't want to make me better. As if you were blind, as if you couldn't see how miserable I was, how pathetic. And I knew, one day you would see it, too. The question only was, how long it would last, until that day came.


	7. Chapter 7: The tightness of water

**Chapter 7: The tightness of water**

I remember, how I woke up a couple of days later. It was the middle of the night and quiet around me. I stared at my ceiling, grey and sallow, and while I was trying to guess the time, remains of the pictures were still crossing my head, which had just been chasing me in my dreams. All of it was always so real, all of it always feels so legit. I feel every single of my breaths, every movement, every single cut I carve into flesh, and the warm blood flooding my hand. Not always are they memories, sometimes they change, sometimes they're even imaginary. My fantasy isn't capable of beautiful things anymore, of rainbows and unicorns, or at least of a strip club. Only of cruelty.

I decided to get up. Quietly I stepped along the hallways towards the kitchen. I stood in the doorway, the bit of light almost still too bright for my by darkness still widened pupils. And I found you sitting at the table. In front of you some book you didn't pay attention to anymore. I sensed your eyes on my bare torso and for a moment I felt more naked than I actually was. My hand moved over my chest, as if to strip you off it, and you found back to my tired eyes.

"Hey," I said with a raspy, sleepy voice. Only now I entered completely and walked to the fridge. A snack in the middle of the night. It seemed to become our thing. Every night I was here and sat down with you and ate. It almost had routine and in a strange kind of way I liked it. It had something calming to it. It had stability. And really, it was the only reason I came here.

"Hey," you answered and seemed to observe every of my movements. I sat down at the table and ate my peanut butter sandwich. It always was like this. Not a word between us. Only two people existing side by side quietly, coincidentally in the same room of the same bunker and at the same time. Like a secret meeting nobody should know about. I allowed you to look at me, actually it was more like staring, and I didn't say anything. Let you continue. Because it was good to be seen. And sometimes I wonder, whether you're the only one, who really sees me.

You stood up and poured a glass of Scotch. You always did, I don't know why. Every time it was like a déjà-vu I couldn't shake off. But it did good, the Scotch. Helped me sleep. Maybe one could say that I have a drinking problem, or at least develop one every once in a while, but to be honest, I don't care what one could say. I like Scotch and I like that you poured me a glass night after night. As if you could somehow sense what I needed, as if you were in my head. And it possibly scared me a bit every now and then, how good you seemed to know me, but then again, it made me feel like I wasn't just the meaningless spot. A spot can be observed maybe, but it wouldn't be cared for it. A spot doesn't matter. And all I wanted was to matter.

You came back to the table again and put down the glass in front of me. I lifted my head and looked at you, thankful and in search of meaning. But I found something else.

"Cas?" I said, holding your trench coat, "What is that?"

Your eyes looked down on you and saw what I saw. A little red spot on your shirt. Blood.

"You injured?" I asked with my voice full of worry. My fingers moved over your chest, as I stood up to inspect you. It couldn't be, you needed to be okay. The splashes on your shirt like spots, like the spot I was. And maybe I overreacted, but maybe I needed meaning for the spots in order to mean something myself.

"No, I'm fine," you answered and your eyes avoided looking into mine, no matter how hard I tried to find them. And my worry became mistrust.

"Cas?" I started again, "Whose blood is that?"

I saw you hesitating and didn't know what the hell kind of answer I expected. What was worse? That it could have been your blood, or that it wasn't your blood? My thoughts circled around the worst possibilities and I imagined it all, imagined what you could have done. And somehow our routine suddenly wasn't calming and stabilizing anymore, but dark and betrayed, and much worse than the dreams I was running away from to you night after night. Humans and their unlimited fantasy. We build a picture and even when we find evidence for the true occasions, our own are not replaced, but simply adjusted. Never could we put reality above our own pictures. Never could I put whatever you would say next above my doubts. Once ignited, never stopped again.

"I… don't know…," you stammered, "probably an old stain"

And finally you looked back into my eyes and I didn't believe a single word. All I could see was lie. I've never understood it. Never have I been able to wrap my head around why I get lied to again and again. By Sam. By Dad. Even by Mum. And now by you, too. Once again. Again and again people look at me and seem to think to themselves, that a lie is the only thing I understand. The only thing I deserve maybe. Am I really such a monster, that no one can, just for once, tell me the truth in my face? Is it really so horrible to talk about reality with me, that they rather put fables in my head?

And I'm really strong, I am. I'm used to getting lied to, getting betrayed even. Watertight, in a manner of speaking. It all just like water off a duck's back to me. But sometimes things happen, we find someone, with whom life is a little less screwed up, we try to understand, beyond all borders, we overcome ourselves for the sake of the We. And yet, inevitable and inescapable, we get disappointed and we lose and fail all along the line. And my invisible wall gets cracks and holes, so many, I can't keep all the disappointment from tearing down the wall. And then, eventually, I can't bear the lies any longer. Like the tightness of water and the tension of its surface that, at some point, with enough movement, can't even hold a fly anymore.


	8. Chapter 8: Suppress

**Chapter 8: Suppress**

I remember. Four days and three hours ago I had found the stain of blood on your shirt. You had said you didn't know, whose blood it was, and dismissed it. And even when I had all the doubts in this world, I had accepted it. But just for the moment. Since four days and three hours ago there was something different between us. I could hardly handle to talk to you, only answered shortly, whenever you talked to me, but actually I tried to avoid words in general. And even when I could hardly bear your presence, every now and then I found myself staring at you, as if to hope to see something that would sell you out. And you noticed my gazes, and I always looked away.

There was an idea inside me. An idea that worked on making sense of it all. And was it only my cruel fantasy that wanted to make me believe the world is bad and everything in it as well, but I believed, no, I hoped not to be forced to believe, that there was a connection between the stain and our last case. The doubt inside me grew more and more and was pointed at you like a gun I only had to load still. And yet, I was afraid of the truth, no matter how much I sought it. And yet, there was a small part of me that wanted to come to you to the kitchen every night, a part that still believed in you. A part that didn't want to give up on our togethership and also not forget.

Sometimes I secretly discovered you wandering along the hallways. Alone, aimless. As if you had no other pastime. As if you were lost without me. Or maybe only full of fear because of me. And beyond all the possibilities and impossibilities, I maybe was, too. It scared me not to know the truth, it scared me that I needed to know it, and it scared me that I might already knew it. You scared me.

I was just talking to Sam about you, not because I wanted to, but because Sam forced me to. He tried to find out, what was going on, and even when I told him all the tiny, few facts there were, there were far more things I kept from him, than things I actually revealed. And then I stopped, because your sudden presence made me.

"Hey," you said way too cheerfully and sat down with us at one of the tables in the room, where you usually watched me read.

"Hey, Cas," my brother answered, not me. I stared at my phone, which seemed much easier than this situation, and I tried everything to ignore you. Sam on the other hand seemed to feel the tension in the air, which threatened to inflame it all. Like the quiet before the storm. And I was dying for the thunder to come, because the fight we were about to have was long overdue. The accusation was literally lying on the tip of my tongue and only waited for me to say it to your face. I wanted to shout at you. I wanted to hit you, right in your face. I wanted to tell you, how stupid you were, and ask, how you could do that. I wanted to make you the monster I wanted to see in you, because at least it would distract me from seeing the monster I was in my dreams. Which I failed to suppress, because with all the disappointment you had put upon me, you had taken the one thing from me that really helped: our routine.

"So uhm, Cas…," Sam began and I only now remembered that he was here, too. It was like I was in a room full of dust and dirt and evil, and the only thing I could see was you, although you actually should be part of it, although you actually were just as evil. Sam failed speaking and his eyes rushed to me. I literally tried to telepathically make him say something, so I wouldn't have to, but he didn't do anything. A deep sigh pushed out of my lungs and I pulled myself together. God, I was angry. So angry.

"Whose blood was it, Cas?" I asked and put all my energy in the try to stay as calm as possible. And surprisingly successfully. More or less. I already knew the answer, at least I thought so. Really, I only asked out of politeness. Or maybe I still had something inside me like hope to be wrong.

"I don't understand," you stammered.

"Answer the question," I fired and my voice became angrier, my hands became fists, desperately trying to keep my aggression in check. And you? You stared at you hands and closed your eyes. And that was the moment, when I knew I was right. Again someone had lied to me. Again I had to be watertight, and again I failed at it. It was like a labyrinth I couldn't find out of. The never ending story of Dean Winchester and how he is lied to. Episode 9023.

"The woman," you just said and my heart skipped a beat, as if to elude falling rocks that were about to hit me. When really, they had hit me long ago. I instantly knew, who you meant. My hope was dead and maybe I had still won in a way, because, after all, you had lived up to my expectation. Maybe I would be able to forgive you someday, maybe I would even be able to trust you again someday. Maybe there was a way out of the labyrinth of lies, and maybe I would find it. But never, never would it be as it had been. Never would our togethership be again how it had used to be. Because in the end, I was only the meaningless spot on the map of your story again. Unimportant enough to get lied to.

"Why?" I asked however, while the air hung heavy and the time seemed to stand still. And yet, I needed a reason. A little sense, which would at least make me understand it.

"It was a misunderstanding, Dean," you answered with a voice so small and quiet, I could hardly hear it.

"A misunderstanding?"

"I thought she was the ghoul, Dean"

"You thought?" I gave back with all the pressure in my voice I could come up with, "Since when is that our way of dealing with things, Cas?"

"I…," you began, but I couldn't let you finish your sentence. I wanted to shout at you. Hit you. Shake you, until you would come to your senses again.

"Cas, apart from…," and I stopped myself for a second to breathe and maybe to, despite all the anger, still keep hold on the yell inside me anyway, "… apart from the fact that you killed an innocent woman, the VICTIM, Cas, apart from you having failed colossally. Why the hell were you even there?!"

"I followed you," you said after what felt like forever.

"You followed us?!"

"Dean, I…"

"Why?!"

"I just wanted to make sure you…," and you swallowed, "… you two are okay"

"We don't need a babysitter"

"Dean"

"You can't just follow us like a goddamn stalker"

"Dean"

"And you can't walk around killing innocents, just because you 'think' they're some monsters"

"Dean," and I couldn't bear you saying my name over and over again, as if it belonged to you.

"We were handling it, until you showed up and screwed it all up like a fucking idiot"

"Dean"

"Cas!" I shouted, because I had to stop him, I couldn't hear my own name anymore. It was like you misused it for whatever you saw in it, for whatever you found right in my name. For whatever you seemed to do in my name. It was, as if Dean was your answer to everything, just that I, the real Dean, didn't want to be used as your excuse.

"Someone died." I said, "And all because of you"

"I know," you whispered and stood up, "I should go"

And even when a lot of me wanted to let you go, there was much more that didn't want that. It's weird, how someone can disappoint us over and over again and we can still want him to be with us. As if we needed it to be disappointed. As if we needed the drama. As if we needed someone, who reminds us again and again of how bad life can be, so we realize what is good for us. Like a lesson we teach ourselves. A practice parkour, in the manner of speaking. A labyrinth. And while everyone else is the architect of their own fortune, I'm only the architect of this labyrinth. And sometimes I'm standing in it and cry for help. And sometimes it's not help I cry for, but things I have to say, so I won't break. To stay watertight, to lute the cracks in my wall.

"You can stay." I said, "But I don't wanna see you."


	9. Chapter 9: Tried

**Chapter 9: Tried**

I was sitting on one of the chairs at one of the neatly arranged, dark wooden tables, with the little lamps on them, in the bunker that is my home. I was reading in a thick, old book. My eyes moved across the old pages and it was quiet around me. Quiet, but not all silent. I had an observer, who wasn't quiet enough to be only that. I heard you breathe, I could even almost hear you blink, and even when apart from that you didn't really move at all, I could even hear that, your no-movements. And it bothered me that you were here, and it made me angry that you seemed to be waiting for it all to be as usual. I would have a realization and you would think it was yours.

I lifted my head and stared at you, with all the accusation and maybe also scornfully. Because that's what I did, I scorned you for screwing everything up. Our job, our hunt, our nights in the kitchen together, our routine. And not least us. It was as if we were here next to each other, but not together anymore. Far apart even. My eyes bore into yours and you didn't last long, until you had to look away. You looked ashamed. And it was good you did.

My heartbeat slowed down, despite the silent anger, which still brewed inside me like a volcano. But I could no longer erupt, I could no longer shout, I didn't want to hurt you anymore. At least not physically. You hadn't only disappointed me and lied to me and betrayed me, as if all of that wasn't enough already, no, you had dropped me. At least that's what it felt like. And I felt stupid for believing I could be something for you. That in all my meaningless being might be something important. I wasn't, who you expected to see anymore. I wasn't the unique artifact, the treasure you had thought to have found anymore. I couldn't end wars and cure cancer anymore, because even when that belief was still in your eyes, it had left mine long ago.

I was just the spot. The spot on your story, the spot in my labyrinth of lies. And maybe I was lying to myself in that very moment, if I thought it bothered me that you were here. And maybe that's the reason why I let you sit there. For days you hadn't dared to come into my view, for days I had been happy about that. While now, in that very moment, I was unhappy that it all turned out this way. As if we had taken the wrong turn and wouldn't find the way back anymore. But after every step we did, there would be further, and wherever this road would lead, I hoped, the end of the road would also be the exit of my labyrinth.

It was all your fault, that we had reached this point. You had failed. So much. And it hurt that you had lied to me, it hurt, everything you had done. And I really tried to forgive you, but it was hard. Again and again I get hurt and it's like nobody would really care. As if everyone agreed that I can handle it. As if it was the necessary evil of life. And even when everyone seems to get to choose who hurts them in this world, I was here and seemed to have no choice at all anymore.

I closed my book and stood up. I left the room, without wasting a single look for you, or a word. I disappeared in the hallways of the bunker and moved towards the kitchen, from where I heard typing sounds. Having entered the room, I felt all the memories it held inside, but not vivid anymore, as if it had been only yesterday, like the memory of something good. Not like rainbows and unicorns anymore, only like dead and buried and like the dreams I couldn't run from any longer. I found Sam on his laptop, apparently doing some research. He looked up at me and seemed almost surprised to see me.

"Hey," he threw into the room and I nodded at him.

I wandered around the room for a few minutes, as if not to know what I wanted here, and really, I actually didn't. Sam shut his computer, his hands folding in front of him on the table, as if he would pray. And I knew what he was praying for. He wanted to start a conversation, he wanted to talk to me, he wanted to learn about it all, I could see that. And even when I had always found the therapy session like conversations with him ridiculous and mostly unneeded, in that moment it seemed in a strange way just perfect. I needed to talk to someone about how betrayed I felt, and with whom would that be better than with someone, who has already betrayed me.

"So," Sam began with his psychiatrist voice, "how's things with Cas?"

I threw him a meaningful look and a snort went out of me, as if to hope it would say enough.

"What you think…," I answered.

"You know," Sam said, with a dramatic pause, which told everyone, who knew him, so especially me, that he was about to say something important, "I know he made a mistake"

"One hell of a mistake," I interrupted, because it was true.

"Yeah, one hell of a mistake. But…"

"He killed someone, Sam"

"I know, I know," and somehow I still had the feeling that he didn't know, "but Dean… it's Cas we're talking about"

"So?" I said, as if your name had no meaning to me, when really, it meant everything. My heart was burning, when I felt that I was lying to myself once again, as if I wasn't better than all the others, who did that to me.

"So… come on, Dean, you know you can't stay mad at him forever"

"Why not?" and I had thousands of reasons why I could, minimum. I wanted to list him each and every one of them, I wanted him to know how angry I was, to understand how hurt I was. I needed an ally in Sam, and found only a back-up, who couldn't back me up. The negotiator I didn't want. I tried everything to be honest, to Sam and most of all to myself, and I did everything I could, because if I wasn't, who would be? Nobody seemed to be able to anymore, nobody seemed to even try.

"Because it's Cas, Dean," Sam said, as if it was the only reason ever needed, when really, it felt like just another excuse, "Cas and you, you're… you're so close. You can't just lock him out like that. You need him, you know that"

And I thought about it. And I understood, why he saw it this way. Sometimes I saw it just like that. Sometimes it was like you were the only one, who could understand me, the only one, who even cared what was going on inside me. And for a long time I had thought that alone would be enough to make you the only one, who wouldn't need to lie to me anymore. But the entirety of my falsity was lying above me and made me small and then I said, "I don't need him," because that's what I really believed, "he needs me"

And even when I had been trying my whole life not to need anyone and had failed with Dad and with Sam and then with you, Cas, eventually too, and had allowed myself to need you, had picked you and thought you had picked me back, it still however felt like a colossal lie I told myself. And in the end, that might exactly be what makes me a meaningless spot.


	10. Chapter 10: Disquiet

**Chapter 10: Disquiet**

I remember. Another couple of days had passed and we weren't even close to okay. And the bunker that should be my home, felt more like a prison. I wanted out. Break out. Flee. Inside these grey walls, which were so well-known to me and so familiar, I sometimes wanted nothing more than to vanish. And every now and then I found myself in the big garage, just sitting in my car, alone and undisturbed, and even when it's senseless to sit in a parked car in the own garage, it made so much more sense to me than everything else.

And when I sat in my bed at night and couldn't sleep, I wished for kitchen and peanut butter sandwiches and Scotch. And you. And that made even less sense. I had a foggy idea you would sit there and wait for me, but I had decided not to come. I had decided not to need it. I didn't need anyone next to me and no one with me. And even when I couldn't deny that I missed being watched and having someone, who sees me and wants to protect me and calms and damps my aggressiveness and anger I had always had in me, in a positive way, I couldn't let it happen. I don't know what that It was, but I knew I didn't want it. I wanted to be free, and I didn't want to get lied to anymore, and I wanted out of my never-ending loop of disappointment. And for the first time, since I know you, I didn't care, whether I was a spot or a giant illuminated sign. The only thing I wanted to be was something that's surrounded by truth.

My bitter disrespect ate me up, and yet, it was the one thing that actually felt real. Our We was dying, because it was time. Not eternal anymore, not forever, not even for now. Dead and dark like space and the night and like everything bad in the world. And yet, I was scared I might miss it. Because no matter how bad something is, the end of it feels just as horrible and inconvenient as the end of something good. Because the end of something means 'never again' and the reason why we can't handle 'never again' is that we desperately cling to everything we can't have, and sometimes we want it only when it seems unreachable. Only when it's dying. And to know that I might still want it was more frightening than every monster ever having threatened my life. As if there was still this little flame, this tiny spark, which in fact was hardly burning, but could still inflame it all. And it wasn't the flame, but the possible major fire I was really afraid of.

Someone had to put it out, before it was too late. I stood up and walked towards the kitchen. You were sitting at the table as always and browsed the pages of whatever book. You looked at me. And I suddenly wasn't sure anymore, why I was here. Because it was all wrong between us, like an imbalance that threatened to turn us over, and I could hardly bear the chaos and I didn't know anymore, whether wiping the slate clean would save us all, or make it all even worse.

So I did what I do best and poured myself a glass of Scotch. I didn't care, why there was a brand new bottle of it in the kitchen and where it came from. I felt your stare even on my back and it was so loud and uncomfortable, even without sound. I felt the giant lump of emotions raising inside me and how it choked my throat, so I could barely breathe. But what that lump hadn't thought of was that I'm the champion of suppression, that I would beat it back where it had come from. I braced my arms on the cold stainless steel counter and closed my eyes, while I felt the Scotch run down my throat softly, numbing, calming, masquerading. And when I turned around, I had made it, my mask was perfect and watertight. I acted as if nothing ever happened, as if it was all fine, or even better, as if nothing mattered. My pretend indifference was complete and trained, and the longer I could sustain it, the more certain I would believe in it myself. I was quiet like a person, who is caught in a daydream, when really, inside me, everything was uneasy and I had the feeling of carrying the weight of the world.

I sat down at the table and took another sip of my glass. You looked at me, as if to be surprised, and I looked back. Really looked at you. Into your eyes. And hadn't I done that for a long time, at least it felt like a long time, and did I even find something like good memories in them, I still tried to rip holes into you, the same holes my wall had, cracks and cuts, almost like by a knife. And when I thought you were now untight enough, just as untight and ripped as I was, I grabbed for the book in front of you and eyeballed its cover for a moment. Turned its pages, maybe even tried to find a reason for why you read it.

But I didn't, and it didn't matter. I threw it back onto the table, loud and interrupting the silence lying above us, and gave you another look. I lifted my eyebrows, as if I wanted to ask something, but I didn't say a word. Because really, there wasn't anything I wanted to know anymore. I knew enough. That I didn't want to talk to you. That I was still unspeakably disappointed. That I felt like an idiot, who has wished for sun, although the whole world said it would rain. And it really did. It was raining inside our own little world and there seemed to be no end to it. And maybe I wanted to tell you all this and show you how I felt. But in the end, people lack courage too much. Courage to be, who they want to be, and to show, who they are.


	11. Chapter 11: Unknowing

**Chapter 11: Unknowing**

I remember, how I was eating a sandwich. My eyes flew to you every now and then and tried to make you understand that you had to stop watching me. But nothing seemed to keep you from it, only a little smile every time, as if our would had not just collapsed, as if we weren't just as far away from each other as possible. And I suffered, I really did. My quiet was nothing more than a facade. Because even when I wanted nothing more than to talk to you, just for the sake of talking really, nothing could keep me from keeping myself from it. The rain and dark clouds above us, as if there wouldn't ever be sun again. I didn't see a way how we could become us again, and that scared me just as much as the quiet swallowing me.

Fear. Fear is an amazing excuse. We say, for example, that we can't go in the water, because we're scared of whatever, when really we actually just don't want to go in the water. And sometimes I wonder, why people don't just say that they don't want to, why there has to be a dramatic reason like the fear of something to be understood. And to be taken seriously. And it's sad that especially the excuse everyone uses always works and is always taken seriously. As if it was the ultimate way out of everything, as if it was the only thing that even mattered. When really, fear doesn't matter at all. Because something we can overcome, and avoid even, can never be a reason not to do something. The quiet, though, the quiet is something absolute. It's either there or just not. We can neither make it up, nor really fake it, nor force it to exist. And I wondered, why I still managed to misuse it as my excuse.

Suddenly you stood up. I wanted to know, where you would go, but I forbid myself the question. I pretended to be absorbed in my food, as if I could enjoy its taste, while I wasn't even sure, if I even tasted anything at all. I had used to love eating, but somehow all the nightly peanut butter sandwiches I had to remember, and all the ones I was missing, had left a bitter taste on my tongue and killed my appetite. You left the room and I heard your steps echoing in the hallways. I wondered, where you were headed, wondered, what you planned again now, feared you would do something stupid again, but at least there was one thing I knew for sure: that you weren't following me. Because I was here and that without you.

Sometimes I wondered, what all of this was. Why you even were so important to me. And whether you actually weren't a burden. A burden on my shoulders I had to carry and bear. Something that had gotten lost into my life and couldn't be imagined away anymore, for the only and simple reason that it had been here for so long. Like a stain I couldn't wash off anymore, not even with all the rain around us. And it hurt knowing that I didn't have you anymore. That I couldn't run away from my dreams anymore and to you, that you weren't this shelter for me any longer. And almost could I feel that pain physically as well, like the proverbial heartache, as if it demanded to be felt so badly, that it overcame the mask and put my body in alert, only to be paid attention to.

A few hours later I was on the way to my room. Your absence didn't stay unnoticed to me, actually I felt it in the walls, as if it was something you can touch. My steps echoed on the cold floor, when I suddenly found you in that very hallway, as if you had never been gone. I stopped. I stared into you eyes and something inside them made me break. Everything crumbled around me, but not like usually the wall that lets me bear it all, but the facade I had built to hide the holes and cracks in it. Like a curtain that eventually fell. It wasn't that you were in my way, it was rather that you were standing on the way I wanted to go, not yet sure, whether you were going it with me or against me. Almost like a barrier, but a bit like a stowaway, too.

"Dean," you dared with a thin voice. Your blue eyes seemed to pierce into mine. And they were dark, because I couldn't just take you with me, couldn't let the only word I couldn't hear out of your mouth anymore, my name, again become the only reason to forgive you.

"Go out of my way," I said more harshly than planned and felt your breath getting heavier, "… please"

"Dean," you said again, as if it was the only word you knew.

"Cas, I…," I began, as my hand moved across my face, as if to hope I could put my mask back on, "… I don't wanna talk about it now"

"But I do," you whispered.

"Good for you," I answered, because I really thought so. I would have given anything to have the same courage. I tried to push past you, but your hand at my chest stopped me. I tried to get you off me, but my muscles didn't stand a chance against your supernaturalness. And hadn't you used it on me for a long time, in this moment I felt its full potential, and it was like another reminder of how meaningless I actually was and how wrong everything between us.

"Dean," you repeated and I surrendered. It was as if you were making war against me and your only weapon was to say my name over and over again. And somehow it even worked. Again my eyes fixed you. I got angry again. All the rage and all the disappointment I had tried so hard to suppress, now pushed into my conscious and it almost was painful to allow them. And I didn't want to, I didn't want to let you win. Something inside me didn't even want to make it all right, something inside me didn't have enough courage for that. Because sometimes, when something is important and makes us feel alive, it hurts just as much to fix it as it hurts to lose it.

"I am sorry," you said, as if I didn't know already, "I have made a mistake. Please don't punish me for it forever."

"A mistake?" I answered and my brows hurled upwards, because it had been long, since I'd last heard something so stupid, "Drinking out of the wrong glass is a mistake. Killing an innocent woman is a little something more else"

"I had to protect you," you breathed into the air, as if it was an excuse for your murder.

"Well, you didn't!" I threw back, "And I don't need you to protect me"

"Of course you need me"

"Yeah, I need you." I admitted, when I finally understood it, "You as a person. You as Cas, the Cas I know. But I can't have you stalking around and kill the wrong people for me, that's not what I need. I need you to be here. When everything blows up and goes to the dogs, and when we don't know what to do and when the wrong people get hurt by people, who are wrong. And you, you're not wrong, and I want you to remember that"

Finally the truth was in the air, suddenly spluttered, and it was as if I had just now remembered again that it was the only thing that kept me alive in my labyrinth of lies. Because who was I to ask for honesty, when I don't perform it myself. In math minus and plus may always equal minus, but suddenly it was, as if I could fight all the minus around me with only my plus. And in that moment it even seemed like the plus could win. The truth is, I had no idea where all of this would lead, I was in a big pile of unknowing, but maybe I had found back my courage and maybe that Maybe would someday become a Definitely.


	12. Chapter 12: Will

**Chapter 12: Will**

I remember. One night I was lying in my bed, wide awake, because my head wouldn't stop thinking. Again and again thoughts swarmed through my conscious, memories, ideas, disappointment. And yet, all the good things seemed to win, the anger began to disappear, hope emerged. And I wondered, why am I like this? Why does it always end the same way? Why, when rage dies away and disappointment fades, can I forgive so easily? Why do you manage to sneak back into my life over and over again? It was the giant fail of my exploding will. And I wondered, if your story involved that, if it should contain my will failing again and again at withstanding to be yours. And perhaps it was time to let the old ways die, but perhaps also not.

Again I got up. In the middle of the night. Barefooted like the nakedness of my ripped will, I went along the hallways of the bunker, the floor cold under my feet, but not uncomfortably. I reached the kitchen and for a moment I stayed in the doorframe. You were sitting at the table like always. But no book in front of you as usual, but coffee. And I wondered why even, because coffee normally didn't have any effect on you. You looked at me, and it was like you were searching the skin you couldn't see underneath my grey bathrobe. The air seemed heavy and yet it was, as if there was finally movement in all the standstill.

"What you're drinking coffee for?" I asked slightly amused and a smile sneaked onto your lips.

"I like the taste of it," you answered. I smiled back. It almost felt foreign in my face, as if I hadn't used those muscles for a long time. And after all, I really had not.

I sat down at the table. No peanut butter sandwich, no Scotch. You alone were enough for me for that night. Maybe I was also scared. I don't know, whether more of us not being able to be us anymore, or of me not being enough for you. And maybe it was right. Maybe in the end I really was the spot. Maybe I didn't have a choice. A will, no matter how exploding, but no decision I could make. Perhaps it had been you the whole time, who had made the decisions for both of us.

You stood up and poured a glass of Scotch. For me. I took it, as if it was all you could give, and as if even just that tiny thing was still enough for me. I drank, and the eyes on me, which I sensed like they would belong to my own bloodstream, were no longer disturbing. It was good, it was as if I was seen. Finally again. And finally again I failed with you. I let you back into my life, into my thoughts and feelings, and I let you be my shelter, and I allowed that you, although you had locked me into my labyrinth again, could also be my rescue. A risk seeming to be worth taking.

"Are we good?" you suddenly asked, as our eyes found each other.

"Well…," I answered hesitantly and stared at my hands, which clenched the glass in front of me like my proverbial sheet anchor, "… not entirely. But mostly."

I saw that you wanted to say something, your eyes staring into space, like you always do, when you're fighting with yourself inside your stupid, helpless angel brain. Inside I smiled. Sometimes you looked like a kid that got its toy taken away, or as if you had done something foolish. And I knew you wanted to make it all right. You hoped so much that I would forget about it someday, about that foolishness. You hoped we could just sit around in the kitchen carelessly night after night again and drink Scotch and eat peanut butter sandwiches and make fun of everyone that's not us. And maybe we could. But I as well knew that there wasn't a single word in this world you could say to make that happen. Only time could. Time would make me forgive, and maybe that was another way out of my labyrinth.

"You know," I began after a while, "there's something I need to know"

"And what's that?"

I paused, because I had to think about, if I really wanted to know the answer. And when I realized that I needed to know it, I asked, "How long?" and I hoped you would know, what I was referring to.

"What you mean?"

"For how long have you been following us… me?" I asked. And I needed the truth, I really did. As much as nothing else in that moment. Like the air to breathe, like a lifeboat or at least a little floating tire. I needed a basis for our We, for our togethership, just as stable as the bunker around us. And every fibre of my body was trembling with the begging for honesty, because I couldn't bear more lies, I needed it, I needed you.

"I followed you this one time," you answered and it was, as if a giant burden would fall off me, because I sensed the rightness of your words, which cast out all doubt.

"Okay," I only said, as if it was no big deal, as if there hadn't just been a monumental event. At least it was for me. And what alternatives had I left? You were standing on my way, and I had to decide, if you were the barrier on that way, whether you would go with me, or against me. And my exploding will had made the decision.


	13. Chapter 13: See

**Chapter 13: See**

It was very early in the morning, when I slowly woke up. My conscious wasn't yet completely in now and here, my eyes not yet ready to see. Slowly my head started thinking, like a motor that, with all its little rack-wheels and screws, had to warm up and gain momentum first, before it was really in motion. Every time it was like I had to newly remember my name and everything that exists around it. My name is Dean Winchester. And I was in my bunker. In my room. At whatever day to whatever time. The images of my dreams faded, and I almost hoped with opening my eyes they would disappear completely. But then I remembered that they never do.

With still closed eyes I painted the room surrounding me. The weapons on the walls, which I had put there, because it looks good in a way. Like a weird decoration. It's not that I think they look nice. It's more that in a strange kind of way they are a part of me. They define me. Meant for killing. Just like me. On the table the few photos I possess. The photo of Mum and me. I was still so small and innocent on it. God, I had no idea, what would come, what my life would be like. And I almost wished I could be that little unknowing boy again, whose mother told him before he went to sleep, that angels were watching over him. But then I remembered that I couldn't go back, and that I had an angel here, who was watching over me.

And Dad's diary that carries so much history in it. Its brown leather cover, which has been engraved in my palms' memory, since as far as I can think back. Its content, which shows how screwed up my life is and how much cruelty and death it contains, even alone the death of its author one of the most horrible things I've ever had to experience. And then I heard quiet steps on the dark wooden floor in that room. My hand cautiously moved underneath my pillow to the gun that always lies there, as a measure of protection maybe, but also as if I could shoot the nightmares out of my head, figuratively, but maybe also someday in the truest sense of the word.

I sat up and looked around me. And I found… nothing. I had the feeling someone was here, but I could barely see anything. Only the weapons on my walls I could use, the pictures on my table with the faces I couldn't recognize in the dark, and the diary that was lying where it always lies. For a quick moment something like fear flared up inside me, or maybe panic, but I shook it off and looked at the clock. One minute after six.

Like a drug, like something that pushes me, the readiness to combat and the pervasive caution had woken me up, as if I had never been sleeping. I couldn't help myself. And in the end, the true horror probably isn't being scared, but having no other choice anyway. And I don't have it. I have to be ready at all time, I can never really rest. The drug pushes me and demands for more and for always and I can't withstand it. But with an angel over me, maybe it was easier for me. My ally against the monster inside me. And so you're right after all. I need you.

I'm not sure, if I know what love is. I had a vague image of it, from movies, from TV, from hearsay. Maybe even a bit from my own experience. But I never really had the feeling to need someone I can love. I never had the time for that. And never a reason. And I had never found it fair to pull someone into my horrible life, and even more, put them in danger. But had I known what love is, I had thought it was you. And I didn't know where I wanted to go, and I wished I had a signpost or a little look into the future. Then again, I didn't seem to be the narrator of my own story for a long time now, I was only the main character. A little marionette without influence and without choice. With my free will that didn't seem to change anything.

I rubbed my eyes and got up. Sleepily I scuffled into the hallways and towards the kitchen. My bones felt tired and my circulation not yet completely awake. My eyes were burning by the sleeplessness and my head hurt by all the blood and flesh in my dreams. And even there I wasn't the narrator, but only the audience, the participant, the player and the cutter, covered in the blood of the cut. I needed coffee. Bitter sweet taste on my tongue to start another day far too early, which I didn't live but only experienced. Reaching the kitchen, I stopped.

"Cas?" I breathed into the room with a gravely voice, because I had hoped to find you here.

"Cas?" a bit louder. I heard steps behind me.

"Yes?" you said and I turned around. The corners of my mouth winced with the try to suppress my smile.

"Coffee?" I asked after a couple of seconds.

"Yes"

I turned on the coffeemaker and got two cups out of one of the cupboards. As we sat down at the table, our gazes met and I drowned in the blue of your eyes, like I do every day. You stared at me, into me, and it was as if you would finally see me again, all of me, as if you could see into my head, into my soul, into every single of my molecules and into my dreams. And yet, you didn't run away. Yet, you stayed with me, no matter how horrible it looked inside me, no matter what you could see in my head, no matter who I was. Or maybe just for that. And it was as if you would see the same world I saw.


	14. Chapter 14: Fiction

**Chapter 14: Fiction**

I remember, it was one week later. Sam and I came back from a job. A vampire nest in Bar Harbor, Maine. And you had stayed in the bunker, I had asked you to. And I couldn't know, if you would follow us, but I trusted you, in a way. The first thing I did, when we came home, was looking for you. I needed to see, if you were all right, I needed to know you save and sound. And I needed to see, if you would wear that illusive smile again, if there would be something in your eyes that would sell you out. I had to make sure that you trusted me as much as I trusted you.

I came to you into the room with all the dark wooden tables, with the little lamps on them, and smiled. There you were. Calm, save, okay. My hands grabbed your shoulders for a moment, when I went past you. I sat down on the chair next to you and saw your eyes following me. As if you had just been sitting here the whole time and done nothing, as if you were on standby, whenever I'm not here. And somehow I liked that idea. I was so happy to see you. You were like the harbor I had just left, only to come back to you, my own weird harbor.

"How've you been?" I asked and it almost looked like I had given you a riddle or an encrypted message, because you eyeballed your hands for a moment, as if you wouldn't know the answer to my question.

"How have you been?" you asked instead.

"Fine," I said, almost even surprised by that, because I can hardly ever say and mean that at the same time, "job's done. We're not in pieces."

I mean, maybe I wanted more details from you, really wanted to know if you were all right. But actually it wasn't even important, because I could see it in your eyes. You looked happy. You looked like it was just as okay for you as it was for me to leave the words unspoken. It was as if we would share the same pair of eyes, as if our worlds became one. And I saw it, I saw the bubble we were in. The completely carefree, beautiful bubble that belonged only to us, where everything seemed to be fiction, future and prediction. And I didn't mind that, because never had I felt more comfortable anywhere than here next to you in that bubble in this moment, far from all the monsters, far from all dreams and lies. And this very moment here felt like an eternity, as if time stood still and the world around us disappeared. And no matter how numbered my days were, in here, here in our togethership, here I could live infinitely, and forever.

My hand settled on your arm, as if to hope your infinity would devolve to me, and I quietly said, "I've missed you"

"And I have bought Scotch for you," you said just as quietly, with the bottle of my favorite brand in your hand, as if it was all it needed. I smiled and understood.

"I'll get some glasses," we both said at the same time, as we equally stood up. Somehow confused, no, more surprised. Amusedly we looked at each other and shared our quiet laugh, like the world we saw through our joint eyes. My hand found you again, your shoulder, your face. It was as if all of a sudden I would see you for the very first time.

My thumb slowly moved over your rough skin and I almost wanted to say something, I don't know what, but it would have crashed the beautiful silence anyway. My quiet was no game, no masquerade, not the mask I had worn. My quiet was real and peaceful and exhausted maybe even a bit. Because the road was long, but I had the feeling to finally arrive. And when I suddenly, even for me fully unexpected, like the fiction of our bubble, like the future I had never dared to imagine, laid my lips onto yours, just for a tiny moment really, I finally found out, how much you meant, and how much I meant because of it, too. I was the spot in my labyrinth, and hadn't I found out of it still, I now at least finally had company. And I would get lost even more, if I had you less.


End file.
